The Impact of the 2010 Women's RugbyWorld Cup on sustained volunteering in the rugby community

Abstract

Major sport events increasingly rely on volunteers to sustain their operations. Thus, event organisers are concerned with the task of identifying volunteers and utilising appropriate strategies to retain them. The purpose of the study is to explore the potential of harnessing volunteer activity in different contexts, as a result of previous single-sport event experience, and to determine which factors influence future volunteering decisions. Data that was related to volunteers' profile, motivations, satisfaction, and future volunteer intentions was gathered through an online survey on 70 volunteers of the 2010 Women's Rugby World Cup. Factor analysis was employed to summarise volunteers' motivations and satisfaction with their experience. Regression analysis was then applied to identify which of these factors, for example, which motivations, aspects of satisfaction with the experience, socio-demographic characteristics, and previous sport engagement determine future intentions to volunteer in similar events or in sport clubs. The implications of the findings for event organisers are then discussed.